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Myer cops social media boycott over NDIS comments

TIM PALMER: The department store Myer has been lashed on social media for its CEOs comments on the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

Myer CEO Bernie Brookes told an investment seminar yesterday that the typical $350 levy is something people might have spent if they'd instead received it in their tax refund. Today after a social media campaign to boycott Myer, Mister Brookes issued an apology saying Myer supports the NDIS but would like to see it funded from another source.

In the meantime the Myer share price slumped, at one stage down 2.5 per cent compared to the average ASX drop of just 0.7 of a per cent. Some social media analysts say that could be the result of the internet campaign, as Jennifer Macey reports.

JENNIFER MACEY: The CEO of Myer Bernie Brookes probably thought he was speaking among friends when he commented on the Government's announcement of a levy to fund the NDIS. Speaking to a Macquarie investment seminar, yesterday, Mr Brookes said average $350 a year that people will pay on the levy was something they would have spent with his company. The reaction on social media was swift and furious.

JENNIFER MACEY: This tweet by Stella Young, a disability advocate and editor of the ABCs Ramp Up, online disability news site, has been retweeted more than 300 times today and triggered an avalanche of protest. Commentators such as Mike Carlton and Corinne Grant also jumped on board.

MIKE CARLTON (voiceover): Memo to self: do not spend another buck in a Myer store until this dickhead delivers grovelling apology.

CORINNE GRANT (voiceover): My store how? Both major parties are now considering the levy increase. You want it funded by what? Magic pixie dust?

JENNIFER MACEY: The Myer Facebook page reflected that sentiment with hundreds of negative comments. Stella Young says she's surprised by the support.

STELLA YOUNG: Because I wrote a piece on Tuesday talking about the fact that I'd got $8000 funding towards a total $22,000 cost of my chair, and the overwhelming response to that was that my wheelchair is a luxury and that I should be grateful to get any support at all.

So I thought that people were less supportive of the levy to fund the NDIS but what Myer CEO has said has been incredibly unpopular and I think that it has actually generated some proper support in the community for the NDIS which is great.

JENNIFER MACEY: In terms of what he said though, isn't it reasonable for a CEO of a company to contribute, say, to the economic argument surrounding the NDIS, and point out that perhaps a tax or a levy could lead to a drop in consumer spending?

STELLA YOUNG: Yeah look it is reasonable of course for him to think about his bottom line, he is a businessman. But I think that what he's overlooked is the fact that the NDIS will stimulate the economy when you are supporting people with disability, so that they can work, so that they contribute to the economy, they also have a greater power in discretionary spending. And some of that money might have been spent in his stores.

JENNIFER MACEY: Laurel Papworth is a social media educator and a member of Forbes magazine's Top 50 social media power influencers.

LAUREL PAPWORTH: And I think it's important to remember it's not just people saying that they disliked what was said by the CEO, but it was actually a call to boycott Myer, so there's been some sub-campaigns going on asking people not to buy anything for Mothers Day at Myer, and a range of other topics as well.

JENNIFER MACEY: This she argues is the modern market place, where social media engagement can have a devastating impact on a company's image.

LAUREL PAPWORTH: Oh yes Apple lost $4.6 billion market cap because of a negative issue on social media a couple, a few years ago, and also I watched this morning Myer stock is dropping. So it's interesting to watch in real time what happens when social media discussions are negative against the stock price.

JENNIFER MACEY: For his part, Bernie Brookes issued a statement saying Myer supports the NDIS. He also apologised to those who may have been offended or hurt by his comments. However he stood by his claim that the NDIS should be funded not by a new tax but by another revenue stream.

This is supported by the Australian Retailers Association's executive director, Russell Zimmerman.

RUSSELL ZIMMERMAN: Obviously the place where you take money out of first is discretionary spend and that's what retailers like Myers and a lot of our members depend upon is the discretionary spend and we know that in the past whenever taxes go up, we always see a reduction in spend in the retail sector.

JENNIFER MACEY: It may well a defendable economic argument, but social media educator Laurel Papworth says most Australian CEOs are ignoring social media at their peril.

LAUREL PAPWORTH: I guess What you can't have is mums and dads in the corner and you ignore them and you say to the business community 'its fine we're making lots of money of these mums and dads', you know, I think that's what social media does, is it allows the information to pass through many different networks and it jumps out of the community it was meant for and ends up in another community. That is fundamentally dangerous to CEOs.